Poker tonight at Hollywood Park Casino near LA

Since it is OK when you play live poker to hit your win goal and leave, that's exactly what I did tonight.

I played the $100 buy-in no limit game. About a year ago Hollywood changed this from a yellow chip game ($5 chips) to a blue chip game ($1 chips) thinking that the betting of blue chips would encourage more action. They were right. The tables at the $100 games are very loose.

I sat down at a new table that just opened up so everyone had $100, and there were no big stacks. I won the first hand I played with Q9 hitting only my 9. That's how loose the table was and won $40. I now have about $140. I won the next pot with KQ suited (made a flush) but it was a small pot of less than $12.

Then I lost a few hands dropping back to $58, so I bought for another $40 to get myself back to $98.

That's when I hit my rush. Playing A2 spades in the big blind (a raise to $8 pre flop) and I flop the nut flush. Two other players in the hand, both agressive and when the hand was over I had about $300. At the peak of my play I had almost $400.

when I dropped back to $301 I left, which was a little more than doubling my buying. That's like earning about $750 over a five day work week and it took less than two hours.

But that is not the point of the post.

The point is when the buyin is limited to $100 (at the Bike, you can buy in for as much as $300 at the $100 table) players play loose because they must figure they can keep rebuying $100 at a time.

One sad note at the table. A player who did a partial rebuy from the dealer and from the chip runner claimed the dealer short changed him by $10 and demanded that a floorman come to the table.

The dealer said he didn't want to spend time sorting it out, so he paid the player $10 out of his own tray (tip money). He probably also didnt want the floorman to hear a complaint about him. I know this dealer, a good young kid. I was sitting in seat one, and after he paid the complaining player the ten blue chips, I slid ten chips over to him and said, "for you." I just felt it was the right thing to do.

I had never seen that other player before, but he was making several rebuys and was having a bad time. I dont know if that player was shortchanged or not, or if he was if the dealer did it or if the chip runner did it.

That sounds like the difference between the actions of someone having a good life vs. someone who who's feeling it all come down on him from all directions. You made a good gesture. No "advantage player" would have ever even thought of it.